Baselworld is only a few weeks away. Getting the latest news is easy, Click Here for info on how to join the Watchuseek.com newsletter list. Follow our team for updates featuring event coverage, new product unveilings, watch industry news & more!

@ AMartin56
"My corners are similar to yours and I get clouding like that when inputs change. Nothing at all when content is being actively shown (including a black screen)"

I don't have clouding or the flashlights on a completely black screen, I think that has to do with the local dimming tech. But, introduce light into a frame and dependent on the brightness you can watch the intensity of the two flashlights in accord. How does your content with black bars and a bright scene effect you flashlights, if at all? Also does changing your echo have any effect on your tv. Thanks

This would make me flip out. I'm pretty sensitive to stuck pixels/subpixels. I would exchange a panel right away if it even had one pixel... Even if I had to make up some other story about the TV being wrong (if they don't accept for one pixel).

Amazingly it's the first LCD I've bought with a bad pixel! (and two of those were 1920x1200 24" monitors with more pixels!)

The good? news is that I was able to convince the wife that as long as we were exchanging it that maybe upgrading to the 55" model wouldn't be such a terrible thing. We'll see how this one turns out...I'll find out on Friday night when I can swap it out. After reading all of the people having problems with their 55NX720's from Fry's though, I'm starting to feel a bit nervous! (No Frys for me! I had to get by with price matching Sears at a local store.)

Now I've just got to figure out what to do with the KD-34XBR960 that this is replacing!

I don't have any flashlighting issues. You said you used CNET's settings, so does that mean you have LED Dynamic Control set to standard? I think this local dimming feature fixed blacks for me.

Yes LED Dynamic Control = standard. I pulled the cnet settings from the deal website that posted the frys price. I did not verify on cnets page(My fault if these are not cnets) my changes are
Adv. Contrast Enhancer = low
Black Corrector = medium
Light Sensor = on (even in off i still have some flashlight but the picture is to dark)

@ AMartin56
"My corners are similar to yours and I get clouding like that when inputs change. Nothing at all when content is being actively shown (including a black screen)"

I don't have clouding or the flashlights on a completely black screen, I think that has to do with the local dimming tech. But, introduce light into a frame and dependent on the brightness you can watch the intensity of the two flashlights in accord. How does your content with black bars and a bright scene effect you flashlights, if at all? Also does changing your echo have any effect on your tv. Thanks

Not sure what you mean by echo but I have very to little stray light in the corners with bright letter boxed content. Maybe a SLIGHT bleed in the corners.

I do see instances where the local dimming struggles. Mostly when there is a bright area right next to a darker one, but for the most part its not distracting. Good example was in 'The Debt' when the cargo ramp of a dark aircraft opens up on to a brightly lit runway. But then that transfer had other issues so the poor content probably contributed to it. A top flight blu-ray transfer like Iron-Man 2 looks awesome throughout.

If the tech allows for it (and I have very little knowledge about the inner workings of the light guides etc) I assume Sony would have planned for letter boxed content and focused/improved the local dimming in those areas. But I'm totally spit balling here..I'm not an expert. But I WAS shocked to see how inky black the letterboxing is.

Hi all, I got my 55 NX720 from Frys and i have got the flashlight effect in the bottom two corners and a bit of slight clouds. This was the best pic i could find in google images to show the clouds and flashlight.Here is a pic with the eco light sensor on. When i turn off the eco there is still a little flashlight effect there but the picture seems a little to dark and if i turn the brightness all the way up, turns blacks grey. My settings are same as cnets except the black corrector is medium and contrast corrector at low instead of off, all the rest the same. My question is to the owners, how many get the flashlight effect with the eco light sensor turned on or off? I want to keep the tv because colors are awesome but it can get annoying watching the premiere effect with flashlights the majority of the time with the bottom black bars in movies. Thanks all in advance

what's your picture settings i had some flashlighting with out the box setting but these work for me very well

Not sure what you mean by echo but I have very to little stray light in the corners with bright letter boxed content. Maybe a SLIGHT bleed in the corners.

I do see instances where the local dimming struggles. Mostly when there is a bright area right next to a darker one, but for the most part its not distracting. Good example was in 'The Debt' when the cargo ramp of a dark aircraft opens up on to a brightly lit runway. But then that transfer had other issues so the poor content probably contributed to it. A top flight blu-ray transfer like Iron-Man 2 looks awesome throughout.

If the tech allows for it (and I have very little knowledge about the inner workings of the light guides etc) I assume Sony would have planned for letter boxed content and focused/improved the local dimming in those areas. But I'm totally spit balling here..I'm not an expert. But I WAS shocked to see how inky black the letterboxing is.

also experience this one. whenever I play skyrim and look at the sun and then look at a dark place it's taking about 2 seconds before the lighting became normal again.

To the people who are talking like getting an NX720 from Fry's has a higher chance for a defective unit, all I have to say is ... C'mon... are you serious? :-)

I'm sure the chance is the same for a defective unit from WHEREVER you buy it. The ONLY reason Fry's is being thrown around in a negative fashion is because of the dirt cheap sale they had recently and more people picking up this particular model.

Don't think that buying the item from Sear's, ABT, or anywhere else is going to give you a better chance of getting a non-defective product.

With that said, to the guy who has a line through his panel, the 60" units use Sharp panels, I believe, so you could probably blame that on Sharp (though Sony did assemble the final product).

I don't see the line down the screen as such a big deal, being that it happened in 4 days and you can just exchange the TV for an identical model or get your money back.

A hassle? Yeah, maybe. But just do it and get it over with. No need to get all worked up over it.

Agree completely. I just bought the 55NX720 from Frys and it is just fine. I also have a Samsung UN55B8500 and although it is not quite as good as that TV, it is pretty darn close. For $1099, it was a fantastic deal.

also experience this one. whenever I play skyrim and look at the sun and then look at a dark place it's taking about 2 seconds before the lighting became normal again.

That is a "feature" in the Skyrim graphics engine! I read that it tries to emulate your eyes adjusting from bright light to normal or dark light! My set does the same as yours, and only on Skyrim. Weren't you ever told not to stare a the sun? :-)

@ AMartin56
"My corners are similar to yours and I get clouding like that when inputs change. Nothing at all when content is being actively shown (including a black screen)"

I don't have clouding or the flashlights on a completely black screen, I think that has to do with the local dimming tech. But, introduce light into a frame and dependent on the brightness you can watch the intensity of the two flashlights in accord. How does your content with black bars and a bright scene effect you flashlights, if at all? Also does changing your echo have any effect on your tv. Thanks

The Eco setting seemed to make the overall picture dimmer for me. I personally didn't like it, and turned it off.

I'm sure the chance is the same for a defective unit from WHEREVER you buy it. The ONLY reason Fry's is being thrown around in a negative fashion is because of the dirt cheap sale they had recently and more people picking up this particular model.

Don't think that buying the item from Sear's, ABT, or anywhere else is going to give you a better chance of getting a non-defective product.

With that said, to the guy who has a line through his panel, the 60" units use Sharp panels, I believe, so you could probably blame that on Sharp (though Sony did assemble the final product).

Well that is a relief. It just seemed like the people who bought from Frys were the ones having problems. I didn't know that the 60"s in this model uses sharp panels, that is not great news since I never liked their PQ on any of their sets. I am surprised to hear that Sony uses Sharp's panels. What panels do the 55" use? anyone know.

I ordered mine from ABT, I am impatiently waiting for the delivery truck to pull up next week, since I have not bought a new tv in in 4 years, unless you include a projector then 2 years.

Flashlights and clouding are always present to some extent on all LCDs, it's just a result of the technology, assembly, mass production and cost savings.

If you can live with it then don't waste your time exchanging it, but if it bothers you to the point that you cannot enjoy the set, then by all means try your luck with a different unit. It's mostly just luck on what you get these days.

I also wanted to know is the 3D on this set decent? The guy who reviewed it on CNET was not impressed, I am thinking maybe he had a bad panel.

But I liked this review:

Here is an in-depth, honest review for the Sony Bravia KDL-55NX720 to hopefully help you decide if it is right for you.

So let's get straight into it. Well, there is a lot to like about the Sony Bravia KDL-55NX720 and being Sony's most inexpensive TV's on the market it is quite a steal. It has the best 2D images I have seen on any LCD TV out there due to the edge-lit LED back light and with the beautiful Monolithic styling just adds classiness. Despite the KDL-NX720 lacking an app store it has a superb internet selection of video from various sources.

The good: The Sony KDL-NX720 produces dynamic, accurate colour and handles 1080p with ease. Due to the edge-lit LED it creates deeper black levels than any other edge-lit on the market. It has Wi-Fi built in with a fantastic Internet suite packed full of streaming services and widgets, It also has a superb slim-profile exterior design with flush Gorilla Glass.

The bad: Sony do not include 3D glasses but I am not a great lover of 3D anyway. Even thought the Sony Bravia KDL-55NX720 is one of the most inexpensive models it is still fairly expensive, the only little niggles I had was with the head tilt and the image deteriorates when seen from an angle but I can't think why anyone would watch from an angle. So to sum it all up, I don't have to many bad things to say about this model and for the price it is fantastic when compared to the prices of it's competitors.

I eventually went with Sony, but mainly because of the monolithic design and because Samsung sells so many models I couldn't figure them out.
(

lol so true. Three years ago I went with a Sony and when I wanted to get another TV late last year, I started looking at other brands (just to take an idea) and I did not have the patience to try and figure out the different models. I know Sony models so I stick with them.

As for your issue with streaming, I'm on wireless network and stream using TVersity and PS3 Media server and never had an issue. Sometimes it hangs after a period of watching so I just stop the video that is playing and then play it again and it resumes from where it stopped. Maybe the issue is with your TV? If you are wired then make sure that wireless is off. Maybe it is on and your TV defaults to the wireless first.

Well that is a relief. It just seemed like the people who bought from Frys were the ones having problems. I didn't know that the 60"s in this model uses sharp panels, that is not great news since I never liked their PQ on any of their sets. I am surprised to hear that Sony uses Sharp's panels. What panels do the 55" use? anyone know.

Only one person has posted their panel type for a 55" (thanks sodaboy581!) and it was a Samsung LTW550HJ0101. I'll post mine tomorrow when I get my set.

I did send Sony an e-mail asking about the particular panels they are using and did get a response back from someone at Sony National Customer Relations, but all they did was point me at http://esupport.sony.com and give me the standard support number ((800) 222-7669) to call though. I'll probably give them a call today, but I don't really have high hopes for finding out much of anything.

If anyone wants to find out their panel type, just turn the TV off and input: Display, 5, Volume+, Power on the remote within 3 seconds and, after the TV powers up, you should see a display of information including the panel type.

Write it down and when done, you can just press the "Home"/"Menu" button to get it off the screen or turn the TV off.

As noted, my 55" is a Samsung panel LTW550HJ0101, TV manufacture date of April 2011.

Only one person has posted their panel type for a 55" (thanks sodaboy581!) and it was a Samsung LTW550HJ0101. I'll post mine tomorrow when I get my set.

I did send Sony an e-mail asking about the particular panels they are using and did get a response back from someone at Sony National Customer Relations, but all they did was point me at http://esupport.sony.com and give me the standard support number ((800) 222-7669) to call though. I'll probably give them a call today, but I don't really have high hopes for finding out much of anything.

Wow it is amazing that Sony uses panels manufactured by their competitors. I would have thought that Sony had their own panel manufacturers. So its like we own a Sammy with Sony's body parts, lol...

If anyone wants to find out their panel type, just turn the TV off and input: Display, 5, Volume+, Power on the remote within 3 seconds and, after the TV powers up, you should see a display of information including the panel type.

Write it down and when done, you can just press the "Home"/"Menu" button to get it off the screen or turn the TV off.

As noted, my 55" is a Samsung panel LTW550HJ0101, TV manufacture date of April 2011.

Wow it is amazing that Sony uses panels manufactured by their competitors. I would have thought that Sony had their own panel manufacturers. So its like we own a Sammy with Sony's body parts, lol...

This has been the case for years, though. Sony has always used a combination of S-PVA (Joint Samsung/Sony venture panel), AUO (AU Optronics), CMO (Chi Mei Optoelectronics), and Sharp panels.

Pretty much any LCD TV that Sony produced which is 60" or higher uses a Sharp panel nowadays.

As of last year, Sony is now also using LG panels in their displays. My KDL55BX520 I returned, with a manufacture date of October 2011, had an LG S-IPS panel.

It's not just Sony that does this either. Samsung does the same thing in their TVs as well.

You really don't know what you're going to get these days.

All the various panels have variations in blacks (we know IPS panels aren't good at this), contrast levels, viewing angles (heard the AUO panels are pretty bad about this... or was it the CMO panels?), sharpness (Sharp panel's pixel structure loses some of the finer details), and response time (ghosting) too. It's pretty wild.